


Picking up Long Scattered Pieces

by GoldenRaven



Series: Of Thawed Hearts and Shattered Masks [2]
Category: Pocket Monsters SPECIAL | Pokemon Adventures
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Animal Abuse, Family, Found Family, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Torture, Recovery, just your standard team rocket stuff
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-12
Updated: 2021-03-06
Packaged: 2021-03-10 17:53:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 13,365
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28021233
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GoldenRaven/pseuds/GoldenRaven
Summary: Team Rocket disbanded three years ago, and Giovanni thought he'd sidestepped the consequences.Silver's been home for two years, and it's just starting to make sense.Green's been home for one year, and still feels out of place(Sequel to A Mountainous Road with a Silver Lining)
Relationships: Female Pokedex Holder Blue | Green & Silver (Pokemon Adventures), Sakaki | Giovanni & Silver
Series: Of Thawed Hearts and Shattered Masks [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1917607
Comments: 11
Kudos: 48





	1. Chapter 1

“Don’t fall asleep, we’re almost home.”

Silver glares at Giovanni from the passenger seat but sits up straighter as he yawns, pulling his head off the stuffed gyarados he’d been using as a pillow.

“I said to sleep on the plane.”

“I tried,” Silver protests.

They’d been in Kalos for the past week. Handing over a list of which of the Kanto League’s sponsors had looser morals had been an easy enough way of convincing Erika and the others that he wasn’t being openly malicious, though he had ended up being the one stuck with smoothing things over with Lysandre when it was time to cut ties.

Silver had come with because there was nothing else to do with him. The only person there was any hope of him actually listening to was Surge, and Giovanni doesn’t have the energy for dealing with that combination. Someone had taught Green how to hot-wire a car over the summer, it hadn’t been Giovanni, and Silver does not need similar lessons.

Dragging him to a crowded, unfamiliar, city had gone about as well as could be hoped for. Meaning he’d stayed in the hotel for the whole week, hadn’t attempted to stab anyone, and Giovanni had been subject to complaints at every opportunity. Which would be extremely grating were it not for the fact that a year ago, Silver wouldn’t have complained to his face about anything.

The plane ride on either side of the trip, chartered private jet though it may have been, had not helped, Giovanni’s sure.

But they’re only a few minutes away from home now, so Silver may as well stay awake. It’s a tossup whether or not he’d sleep through being carried in, and if he gets a nap now he’ll have trouble getting back to sleep once their home, and they need to be up early tomorrow.

“We should have brought Green with,” Silver mumbles after a few minutes, startling Giovanni.

“I’m sure she’d rather stay with her parents at the moment,” he replies lightly, not sure what had brought this up. It’s been a while since the two have actually met up (Green’s still avoiding Professor Oak and Silver’s never mentioned wanting to go out to Sevii) but at the same time, he doubts distance is a bad thing right now. They’ll probably both benefit from having some time apart where they don’t have to worry about each other. He wouldn’t have called their previous dynamic co-dependent, but they both have a habit of putting the other over their own needs and distance where they’re both safe is about the only thing that will fix that.

Out the corner of his eye, he sees Silver nod, though he doesn’t look convinced, and slump back in his seat.

There’s another few minutes before they reach the house, and Giovanni pulls both their suitcases out of the trunk and lets Sneasel out of the backseat as Silver unlocks the door into the house from the garage, and Giovanni tries not to be too surprised when he actually remembers the code for the alarm.

What is unsurprising, however, is when the boy flops onto the couch with a dramatic sigh, stuffed toy resting on his chest.

“You should go to bed, we have to be at the gym in the morning.”

Silver groans, and rolls onto his side, his arm draped over his face.

“I’ll just sleep down here,” he mumbles.

“No. You’ll roll off the couch.” Or get too cold and not be able to sleep. “Come on.”

Silver shifts to glare at him, and after a moment, Giovanni leans over enough to get his arms under the stubborn eleven-year-old and picks both him and the gyarados up. (It actually takes a small amount of effort to do so now; Silver’s still short for his age (likely due to years with little food), but his weight is finally where it should be.)

He doesn’t protest, just lets his head settle on Giovanni’s shoulder as they head for the stairs, and Giovanni doesn’t comment when he crawls into bed still fully dressed once he’s set down in his room.

“Can you stay for a bit?” Silver asks as he curls up on his side, an arm wrapped securely around the gyarados.

“Is something wrong?” Giovanni replies, switching off the light.

“Not really, I guess. But…”, he trails off, and Giovanni sees his shoulder twitch in a shrug under the blanket. 

“You’ve had a long week.” Giovanni sits down next to the bed, rubbing Silver’s back as he adds, “I’ll stay until you’re asleep.”

“Thanks.”

It doesn’t take very long for him to drift off, he’d been half asleep when they got home anyway, but Giovanni stays sitting by the bed for a few more minutes, just taking in the room.

Nothing’s out of place. Silver’s oddly organized about his own space, possibly in an attempt to lessen his still-present habit of loosing belongings (Giovanni has long since forced himself to stop thinking about the implications of just how panicky Silver gets when he does loose something).

But the room isn’t as plain as it was a year ago either.

Sneasel’s bed has moved from the top of a bookshelf to a small hammock hung high in one of the corners, where she’s currently peering down at him from.

There’s a pile of textbooks on the desk, along with a perch for Murkrow, two picture frames on top of the dresser, Nidorino’s bed is in the corner by the window, and, tucked behind the door so it’s only visible if one is in the room with the door shut, is a poster from some show that Green had gotten Silver for his birthday.

So the room actually looks like it’s inhabited by a child now.

Giovanni glances over as Silver shifts in his sleep, rolling onto his back.

He brushes the boy’s bangs from his face, before standing up and heading for the door. Sneasel chirps quietly as he leaves the room.

His own room is just across the hall, and he slips in with a slow exhale.

He tosses his jacket over the back of the armchair by the window before sinking into it and letting Nidoking out.

He’s tired. There isn’t much point to doing this tonight other than maintaining a habit, but as the pokemon settles at his feet with a noise somewhere between a sigh and a groan, Giovanni lets out another deep breath, trying to clear his thoughts as he sets a hand on the back of Nidoking’s head.

There isn’t really anything to feel. Just sleepiness, a vague sense of contentment.

But that’s more than he’s been able to sense in years.

He’s not sure when exactly his gifts had started returning, it had been some point after Cerise, but that’s as much as he can pin down. They’d never been the strongest, and he doesn’t like relying on them (and can’t in gym battles anyway), but they’re back in some capacity.

He hadn’t really cared when they’d disappeared, but it is… not comforting, but something to that affect to have them back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> find me at [shellys-apprentice.tumblr.com](https://shellys-apprentice.tumblr.com/)


	2. Chapter 2

Silver wakes up to a familiar weight sitting on him.

He doesn’t open his eyes as he shoves Sneasel off, and rolls onto his stomach, doing his best to act like he’s still asleep. Giovanni can feed her.

He hears an irritated hiss, and she jumps on him again, blowing cold air in his ear.

“Alright, I’m up.”

He pushes her off again, and scrambles out of bed, rubbing at the side of his face.

A glance at the clock in his room shows that he could have slept for another twenty minutes or so and still been ready in time to leave, but Sneasel clearly thinks otherwise.

He knows she’s mainly after breakfast, so he takes his time getting dressed, in jeans, a sweater, and a jacket that he stuffs his handkerchief and phone into the pocket of, along with the balls for his less “helpful” pokemon.

He tugs a glove off long enough to run his fingers through his hair a few times as he heads for the stairs, and by the time he and Sneasel reach the kitchen, he thinks he looks relatively presentable.

Which has been a keyword since the gym reopened. Because Giovanni clearly cares about the image that he gives off with it, and while he’s never said anything to Silver about it (and Silver tries not to be at the gym when there are visitors, be they other league members, press, or challengers, anyway), he still tries to match it. It just seems like the helpful thing to do.

Silver opens the fridge, and sets two eggs in Sneasel’s outstretched paws, watching as she darts off with them.

Then he digs a granola bar out of a cupboard and heads out to the yard where Giovanni’s sitting on a bench, monitoring his team as they eat.

“You’re going to eat more than that, right?” Giovanni asks, glancing back at him.

“I will.”

He lets Nidorino and Murkrow out, and pads over to the bins where food is stored; filling a bowl with Murkrow’s grain, and reaching into the container of food that Nidoking, Nidoqueen, and Nidorino all share, careful not to let any touch his bare wrist. What’s good for poison types isn’t necessarily friendly to human skin.

Once they’re both eating, he walks back over to where Giovanni’s sitting, and settles next to him.

An arm slips around his shoulders, and he leans into his side, still tired.

“How are you feeling?”

“I don’t want to be up yet.”

“You can sleep at the gym.”

“Hmm.”

Giovanni shifts and Silver sits back up to let him stand.

He watches as Giovanni walks towards Nidoking, checking him over before there’s a chance of him getting pulled into a battle at the gym, and as Silver finishes the rest of his bar, he feels his phone vibrate in his pocket.

Quietly, he pulls it out and stares at the text from Green for a few seconds before the words actually register.

_> How was Kalos? _

> _It was fine_

He doesn’t add anything else. He’d been mostly serious last night about wondering whether they should have brought her with, even though he knows why Giovanni hadn’t offered.

Because Green has implied a few times that she’s having trouble settling in at home, and Silver’s pretty sure she’d have jumped at the chance to get out of the region for a while with them, which is not that likely to help.

> _Just fine?_

He wrinkles his nose, wondering if she’s trying to avoid something else right now.

> _I stayed in the hotel the whole time_

Not completely honest, but he also hadn’t been wandering the city by himself either. Lumiose is bigger than anywhere in Kanto, and Giovanni hadn’t wanted him wandering around by himself, not that Silver had particularly wanted to anyway.

_> The food was good_

With that, he slips the phone back into his pocket and stands up.

Green seems to take his non-answers as a sign that he’s busy because his phone stays quiet as he walks over to set a hand on Rhyhorn’s head, petting the rock type without much thought. Giovanni may keep his interactions with most of his pokemon to the bare minimum of praise when they do well and care when they're hurt, but they certainly don’t seem to mind more attention from Silver.

He sits down, leaning against Rhyhorn as he looks around the rest of the yard.

Giovanni’s team has grown a bit over the past year.

There’s a steelix at the edge of the yard who’d been caught to fill out his team for the gym, but beyond that, there are also a handful of pokemon caught from the forest. The more rambunctious remnants of Team Rocket’s experiments, even if Silver’s not supposed to let anyone know that he knows about that.

Going back to the gym had apparently meant having to deal with them though, and while most have calmed down, every now and then, one causes a problem, and Giovanni hasn’t told Silver what the alternative to catching them is, but he can take a guess that it’s a lot worse and much more permanent.

Even if Giovanni insists that he’s only keeping them to make sure no one else gets a hold of them and figures out how to repeat things.

Silver hears the sound of pokemon being recalled and shifts to look back as one by one his father’s team disappears back into their balls. Rhyhorn plods over once Silver stands back up and is the last one to be put back.

“Time to go?” Silver asks.

“In a few minutes, you still need to eat,” is Giovanni’s simple reply, and Silver follows him back to the house, collecting Murkrow and Nidorino, and pretending not to notice when Sneasel jumps onto his shoulder once he’s back in the kitchen.

Breakfast ends up being eggs on toast, and Silver taps his foot quietly on the floor as he eats, ignoring the pleading looks Sneasel’s giving him.

Across the room, Giovanni is sorting through a stack of papers, slipping some into a briefcase, and leaving others on the counter for when they get back.

Kalos had been okay, but Silver’s glad that things are back to normal now. He likes having a routine in place.

It takes another few minutes for Silver to finish eating, and then they’re on the way to the gym, with him staring out the car’s window at the forest, and he jumps when Giovanni says, “Yellow’s here already.”

He sounds sort of amused, and sure enough, when Silver looks up towards the building, Yellow’s sitting in the doorway stroking Chuchu.

She waves as they get out of the car, and walks over. There’s something very determined in the way her shoulders are set, and Silver isn’t surprised when she says, “There were some trainers messing with a beedrill nest in the forest yesterday, and they didn’t listen when I told them to knock it off. They’re staying at the Center right now because one of them got a shock from… something and they had to spend the night so the paralysis could wear off.” Chuchu squeaks at her heels as she adds, “I told them they had to talk to you before I’d let them go back in, so Silver and I are gonna go watch the main path in and make sure they do that.”

Silver can see the corner of Giovanni’s mouth twitching as he nods. Yellow has a habit of dragging anyone she thinks is messing with things too much back to the gym for a lecture, so her electrocuting someone over a beedrill nest because Giovanni hadn’t been available isn’t that surprising. Silver isn’t sure when she’d decided this was a good method of problem-solving, but she’s also several inches shorter than him so he doesn’t blame her for getting someone more intimidating to get the point across.

He also knows that there’s no point in arguing with his sudden assignment to guard duty.

“I suppose I’ll have a talk with them then,” Giovanni says, sounding slightly amused. “I’ll see you two later.”

Silver doesn’t get a chance to say anything before Yellow nods and grabs him by the arm, pulling him down the path to the city.


	3. Chapter 3

Green clicks the timer’s stop button as Nido resurfaces on the sand with a flourish, and tries not to wrinkle her nose as she compares the time to what the textbook open in her lap suggests the attack should take.

It’s Giovanni’s book.

As in, he wrote it, and she’d found it at the library and been curious. Nido’s still unevolved, though Green had gotten her hands on a moon stone, but there’s still useful information, and her ground type attacks are consistently slower than they should be. So, in theory, if Green fixes that now, then when she does evolve, they’ll be even better.

Or the issue is just that she isn’t a ground type yet, and the problem will resolve itself once she’s evolved and all the extra work will turn out to be pointless.

Nido walks over, resting her chin on Green’s knee, clearly trying to see what she’s doing, and Green rubs the top of her head as she rereads the page.

The loose sand might be part of the problem since it’s more likely to close in on anything tunneling through it, but given that Sevii is ninety-percent beach and Green isn’t allowed to tear up the yard, there’s not a whole lot she can do about it that doesn’t involve angering neighbors (even if some of them are annoying).

Keeping her fingers on the page for “Dig”, she flips through the rest of the book. The actually smart thing to do would probably be to call Giovanni, rather than digging through a book he’d written twelve years ago, but this isn’t really urgent so much as it’s a project to keep her from going completely crazy.

Sevii’s a lovely place, and she’s glad to be home, but there is nothing to do.

There are a handful of other trainers, but they’d all been easy wins, and Green doesn’t have Red’s knack for coaching so she doesn’t bother with them. She’d made a friend a few months ago, but their interests overlapped more at spotting security cameras in stores and palming lipsticks and jewelry than anything that takes effort or thought on Green’s part.

(She hadn’t been trying to fall back into old habits, really, but it’s easy, and no one’s going to catch her, and surely it’s better if she saves up her allowance for when she really needs money than to spend it on stuff she’s perfectly capable of just taking, right? Besides, she’s never going to see Oak again, and what Mummy and Daddy don’t know won’t hurt them.)

She slips an arm around Nido, and pulls her up onto the bench, trying to figure out how to translate the diagrams in the book into actual instructions.

They’ve been at this for an hour, which is longer than she’d usually stretch out a training session, but…

Mummy has some friends over for lunch and Green had said she’d be there, but she’s also more than willing to put off listening to whispered comments about how well she’s adjusting.

There hadn’t been a way around explaining at least some of what had happened to Mummy and Daddy’s friends (she’d shown up out of nowhere after all), and Green’s sick of sympathy. She knows they mean well, but she doesn’t want to hear it, and hiding at the beach with a semi-decent excuse is the easiest way of avoiding it. Neither of her parents has any experience training pokemon, so they won’t be showing up to point out that she’s been at this for too long.

Or that going at any kind of training with no real goal in mind is more likely to be detrimental than anything else.

Her phone chimes in her pocket, and she closes the book in favor of digging the device out of her jacket and feels the corner of her lip twitch as she reads the message from Silver detailing how Yellow’s apparently making life hell for some kids who’d made the mistake of messing around in the forest.

She’s glad he’s still talking with Yellow. It makes her feel less guilty for almost never being in Viridian. She’d gone up last month for his birthday, but it had been a while before that. But the closer to Pallet she is the higher her chances of running into Red or either Oak, and she doesn’t want to deal with any of them. Red’s just frustratingly optimistic, but Blue and the Professor both have reasons to be mad at her, and why risk an argument?

She sends Silver a response, telling him to not actually hurt anyone, and then notices a text from Mummy, telling her that she should hurry back because someone had brought a dessert she’ll probably like, and after a few seconds of thought, she sends back that she’s on her way, and stands up, stretching her arms over her head.

She can always barricade herself in her room with the cake if things get too annoying.

Nido follows at her heels as she heads towards the sidewalk, and Green pauses to shove the book into her backpack before they get too far.

It’s not a long walk to the house. It’s not a long walk to anywhere on Sevii, really, but her parents do live surprisingly close to the water.

She’d asked why they’d picked Sevii once, and the answer had been that it’s quiet, and a change of pace from Pallet.

Green would like to argue that Pallet is plenty quiet, but certain people (Giovanni) had rendered that a hard point to make.

(Granted, Oak could have tightened his security system after an eleven-year-old got through it but…)

When they reach the house she tries not to balk at the number of people sitting around the table in the yard and walks up to Mummy’s elbow.

“Hi, sweetie. The food’s in the house, go get a plate.”

“’kay.”

She slips into the house, leaving Nido to beg for attention from the guests, and quietly puts together a plate.

Mummy’s business partner and another lady Green doesn’t recognize come in right as she heads for the door, and she steps out of the way and freezes when she hears what they’re discussing.

“I just don’t understand why it would be coming back in Johto. And the towns that are reporting problems seem so random too.”

“I doubt it’s anything as big. Probably just bored kids using a name they know scares people.”

Green slips out of the kitchen, and leans against the wall once she’s out of their sight, no longer paying attention to their conversation as she makes herself take a deep breath, count to five, and then another one, before going back outside, still on edge.

Mummy motions for her to sit next to her when she reaches the table, and Green plasters the least fake smile she can manage on her face as she settles with her food, and Nido sits on her foot, clearly hoping for crumbs.

“Everything okay?” Mummy asks, and Green’s smile falters.

“Yep, I’m good.”

“So Green,” an older lady that she thinks may have been one of Mummy’s clients starts, “Cara mentioned that you’re a bit of a trainer. Did you ever win any badges?”

“I have seven.” Stealing them still requires outsmarting their respective gym leader, so regardless of what Giovanni and Red think, she thinks she’s entitled to taking credit for the seven she’d gotten her hands on. She’d even actually beaten Sabrina.

Mummy squeezes her shoulder, and the other lady smiles, and Green does her best to put what she’d overheard at the back of her mind for now.


	4. Chapter 4

Something feels wrong.

Silver can’t place what, but something suddenly has him on edge, his stomach twisting itself into knots, his shoulders rigid, and his breath is shallower than it should be.

He can’t figure out why though.

It’s not even that cold out.

He’s in the park with Yellow. She’s quietly sketching a nearby weedle, and Silver’s supposed to be writing a book report, but he hasn’t been able to focus on it.

There’s no point in suggesting they go back to the gym though. It’s getting late, Giovanni will be here to pick him up soon-ish, and he doesn’t want to go back before he gets here because there’s a trainer at the gym, and Silver doesn’t have the patience to play nice with his supposed peers or listen to another speech about how “cool” it is that his dad’s a gym leader.

He jerks when Yellow sets a hand on his shoulder, and she quickly pulls it back.

“Are you okay? You’re acting weird.”

“I’m fine. Just tired, I think.”

He turns back to the notebook on the picnic table, and she nods, looking unconvinced.

It’s dark by the time Giovanni shows up to collect them, and Chuchu is sitting on the table, providing a light source.

Which does Silver no good, he’s made about two sentences worth of progress on his paper.

He tries not to be too obvious about shrinking into Giovanni’s side once he stands up, and the arm that slips around his shoulders is a welcome comfort even as he tenses up and Giovanni loosens his grip.

He’s not really paying attention as Giovanni offers to drive Yellow home, and she says yes, and he lets himself be led to the car as she follows behind them.

He still doesn’t feel good, and he gives their surroundings another worried examination before climbing into the passenger seat and clinging to the seat belt once he’s settled.

His gaze stays locked on the window as they head towards Yellow’s house, and he’s not really listening to what she and Giovanni are talking about, and he jumps when the car door closes behind her.

“Is something wrong?” Giovanni asks as Yellow waves at them from her porch before slipping into the house.

“No, I’m just tired.” He’s not sure how to explain what’s bothering him, especially since he doesn’t know what had caused the problem in the first place.

Giovanni glances at him, but nods, and stays quiet as they head home.

They get about halfway before Silver starts shaking and Giovanni slips an arm back around his shoulders.

“Do you want me to pull over?”

Silver shakes his head, not trusting himself to not start crying if he opens his mouth.

By the time they pull into the garage, he’s hyperventilating, and as soon as the car stops he climbs out, desperate for space, and he sinks down against the wall.

He vaguely registers Giovanni sitting down next to him, and he tries to focus on the hand that settles on his back.

He’s fine.

Nothing happened.

Whatever had set him off hadn’t even been big enough to notice, why’s it bothering him this much?

Breathing hurts, but eventually, it gets easier, and he slumps against his father, still shaking.

“Did something happen?” he asks again, and Silver shakes his head.

“I wasn’t feeling good earlier, but... I can’t think of anything right now.”

“Earlier in the week maybe?”

“No.”

Giovanni sighs, and rubs Silver’s back as he says, “Do you want to go lay down?”

“No.” He doesn’t want to be alone with his thoughts until he has to be. “I’ll help with dinner though.” Something to focus on usually helps.

“If you’re sure.”

Giovanni lets him stand up, before pulling himself up, and then Silver follows him quietly into the kitchen.

He’s pretty sure plans for dinner had just been leftovers from last night, but (probably in an attempt to keep him distracted for a while) Giovanni seems to have changed his mind, and within a few minutes, Silver’s stirring the beginnings of a soup, and Giovanni’s watching a cut of meat cook in another pan.

“Green called earlier,” Giovanni says after a few minutes. “She said to tell you hello.”

“How is she?”

“She’s doing good. Apparently trying to get back on track with training.”

Silver nods, prodding at a clump of vegetables in the pot and trying not to overthink why she’d called. She’d probably just had a question about training. Maybe she’s thinking about evolving Nido.

They drop back into silence until the food is served, and they’re both settled at the table.

Warm food perks Silver up a bit, and he takes his time eating as he thinks over what had happened in the park again.

Now that he’s calmer, possible explanations for what had happened earlier are quick to supply themselves.

Maybe someone at the park had had a piloswine or something and he just hadn’t remembered.

Or he’d heard something. Slamming doors and breaking ice or glass have both set him off before.

It was probably something small.

Which still isn’t good. He should be over it by now, but it is better than the alternatives, like someone having been following him or Yellow.

“For future reference; I want you back at the gym before it gets dark, regardless of whether there’s a trainer there or not. And I’m sure Yellow’s uncle would prefer she not still be wandering around that late too,” Giovanni says after a few minutes.

“Okay.” He’d been expecting that rule change, so it’s not that surprising. “Did you win?”

“No.” The corner of his mouth twitches as Silver looks up. “The League’s had some interesting participants this year.”

“Is that good?”

“It means interest is picking back up, so yes.”

Silver nods, his attention drifting back to the bowl in front of him as he takes another bite, and he makes himself run through his mental checklist.

He’s home.

He has food.

Giovanni’s right across the table from him, and he’s not going to let anything happen to him.

He’s fine.


	5. Chapter 5

Giovanni doesn’t bother getting up from his desk when he hears the front door to the gym opening and closing. The lack of high-pitched voices calling throughout the building means it’s probably not a challenger, and Silver had figured out how to shut the door silently a few months ago and seems to enjoy startling him by getting in unannounced. He is slightly surprised when Blaine pushes the door to his office open, clearly mad about something, and Giovanni sinks back in his chair, studying one of the papers that had been sitting on his desk with more interest than it really needs.

"What's going on in Johto?"

"Nice to see you too, Blaine. Glad you made it through surgery. I've been doing well, thanks for asking." He doesn’t look up.

"What. Is. Happening. In. Johto?" Blaine leans over the desk, his hand on the papers, and Giovanni tries not to be too annoyed by the fact that Nidoking doesn’t even bother getting up from his nap in the corner at something that a few years ago would have warranted tackling the man to the floor.

Though Blaine isn’t very threatening, so he supposes he can’t fault the pokemon too much.

"Nothing that concerns either of us."

"So it's just pure coincidence that the Lake of Rage is completely flooded from gyarados being worked up? Or that Goldenrod’s tunnels have been completely taken over? Or how about how none of the slowpoke in Azalea have tails? And then there’s the delivery of pokemon to Elm that has mysteriously vanished."

Well, that last point explains why he’s here now if nothing else.

"Contrary to Samuel and Erika's beliefs, I did not, in fact, invent breaking the law. Goldenrod now has a train line directly to Saffron. More people coming and going means more crime, that's basic math. Mahogany is without a gym leader at the moment and is small and secluded so it doesn't have much by way of police. Azalea is, again, small and secluded. They're both easy targets. Also, you have no proof any of it is connected, let alone that I have anything to do with it.”

“How could it not be connected?” Blaine snaps, still not moving back.

“Goldenrod isn’t dealing with anything beyond just an increase in your average, big-city crimes, the problems around Mahogany are mainly centered around the wild pokemon acting strange, and Azalea’s an easy spot for poachers to set up. Chances are it’s at least two different groups. Possibly three.”

“And that absolves you of all responsibility, does it?”

“Did you miss what I said? If it is multiple groups, the worst thing I could do would be to step in, and the same goes for the four of you.”

He tries not to laugh at the scowl that darts across Blaine’s face at him being lumped together with Sabrina, Koga, and Surge.

“Don’t throw me in with the rest of you. I didn’t need to have everything blow up in my face to realize what I was doing was wrong.”

“No, you just came crawling to me for funding when you realized your plan of cloning Mew would never make it past an ethics board. You can get mad at me about what happened all you like, but at the end of the day, all I did was provide you with resources. I had uses for Mewtwo, but it was your idea. And I never made you stick the thing’s cells in your arm, so don’t try and pin this-” he gestures to Blaine’s knotted off sleeve “-on me either. The only thing I ever did against you was try and retrieve the files you stole from me, half of which had nothing to do with anything you had been working on.”

Blaine’s hand drifts towards his sleeve, and Giovanni can see the tension in his face. He’d been gone for the past month, in and out of hospitals in preparation for getting rid of the limb that had been killing him. Giovanni suspects he won’t get an answer if he inquires as to what had been done with Mewtwo after the fact.

“So you’re just going to let things repeat in Johto?”

“What happens in Johto is a problem for Johto’s league and police. I am neither, so unless they decide to start something in Viridian, or if I’m feeling particularly gracious, Pallet, it’s not really my concern.”

Blaine opens his mouth to argue, but the door behind him gets pushed open, and Silver slips in, only to freeze in place when he sees that Blaine’s here.

“I can come back-”

“No, you’re fine. Blaine was just leaving.”

Giovanni holds the man’s gaze until he steps away from the desk with a sharp nod.

“This isn’t over,” he says, his tone cold, before turning and, after nodding to Silver, stalking out the door.

“What did he want?” Silver asks, looking over with wide eyes.

“Nothing important.”

“Really?”

“Something happened in Johto, and he’s under the impression that my getting involved would fix things. It likely would not.”

“Oh.”

He still looks worried, but after a few seconds, settles on the couch in the corner, digging through the bag of school books he’d left on it.

That, apparently, does warrant Nidoking’s attention, and the pokemon slowly gets to his feet before plodding over to see what Silver’s doing. Giovanni doesn’t even need to try to pick up his hopefulness for treats, despite the fact that Silver isn’t supposed to be sneaking any of his team junk food. He’ll bring that up later.

“What were you and Yellow doing today?” he asks before Silver can get too absorbed in anything.

“Fishing. Yellow caught a few things, but she threw them all back.”

Giovanni nods and leaves Silver to settle in with his schoolwork. He’s been doing better since whatever had set him off a few days ago, and Giovanni would rather not drag him into things if he doesn’t have to, but after a few minutes, Silver pipes up again with, “You’d tell me if something was going wrong, right?”

“Of course. There’s nothing you need to worry about Silver. Everything’s fine.”

Regardless of who’s running things in Johto, and how many of them there may be, no one’s stupid enough to try and start things in Viridian while Giovanni’s here. Other than the experiments in the forest, the city had been off-limits before, and he doubts anyone is willing to pick a fight now. He’d told Green as much when she’d called too. There’s a reason things are picking up in Johto and not Kanto, and he doubts things will spread. That half the League consists of their former superiors seems enough to ensure it.

He probably will be a little firmer on Silver not wandering around without him or Yellow with though. Just in case.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Look, Blaine loses an arm or he dies horribly. No Pryce = no Entei to heal him


	6. Chapter 6

“Doesn’t it seem kinda morbid to you? That they just rebuilt it?” Green asks, peering over Daddy’s shoulder to look at the news article about Silph’s headquarters reopening.

“What would you rather they do?” he asks, handing her the newspaper.

“They have to have other buildings they could make into a main building. It just seems weird.” She doesn’t really want to elaborate on why. It’s probably fairly obvious anyway.

“I think the thought behind it was that not going back to the site would give the impression that Team Rocket had won.”

“They took over the city for months. They kind of did win.”

Her tone is flat, but she’s still surprised when he doesn’t take what she’s saying as a particularly dark joke.

“Do you want to talk about Silph?”

“No.”

Her gaze drifts to the article as he nods, not looking surprised.

There’s nothing mentioned about what she and the boys had done. There really isn’t a lot of information on the three of them anywhere anymore, not since it had come out that Red had accused an “innocent gym leader who hadn’t even been in the region” of running a crime ring, and suddenly everyone wanted to hush up about what had happened in case Giovanni sued them for slander or something.

(To be fair, she doesn’t think he’d had been _trying_ to make Red sound like a gullible idiot, but that had certainly been the angle the press had run with in their attempts to not get in trouble with him or the League.)

She doesn’t really care, none of it affects her out here, and it does mean none of the neighbors have figured out who she is.

Her parents had also bought the whole story, which made things easier, so there’s that.

After another quick scan, she hands the paper back to Daddy, giving him a bright smile before he can read too much into her hesitation.

“I guess it’s better than leaving the spot empty.”

He nods, still looking worried, but he folds the paper up and stands up.

“Do you want coffee?” he asks, correctly assuming that he won’t be getting anything else out of her.

He gives up quicker than Mummy does.

Thankfully.

“Do we still have the sweet creamer?”

“Mm-hmm.”

“Then yes.”

She settles on one of the stools at the counter as he pours two cups, and sets on in front of her along with the jug of creamer.

“Why do you bother with the coffee if you’re just going to smother it with that?” he asks, leaning against the counter.

Green shrugs, waiting until the coffee is barely darker than the cream before she stops pouring. “It’s bitter on its own.”

At least her parents don’t double up the amount of grounds in the machine the way she’s pretty sure Giovanni does. It kept her awake after a bad night, yes, but there was no drowning out the flavor or smell.

She hears a quiet laugh as she takes a sip.

“Well, I should get going. Enjoy your creamer with a hint of coffee.”

“I will, thank you.”

She smirks, though it falters when he kisses the top of her head.

“See you later.”

“Bye.”

She waits until she hears the key turn in the lock to slide off the stool, and pad into the living room with her drink.

Jiggly and Wisp, Mummy’s glameow, are laying on the couch together, and Green sinks into the armchair across from them.

(They’d had this chair in Pallet, and if she really strains herself, she thinks she can remember curling up in it for stories.)

She pulls her feet up onto the chair as she takes a sip of the coffee.

She’s glad Mummy and Daddy have gotten over their problems with leaving her by herself. When she’d first gotten home they’d done everything they could manage to not do it, and while she understands why they’d been on edge, it had also been frustrating.

And they’re still a little twitchy about some things, but they have gotten better about it.

And she likes having the house to herself; sitting quietly on her own, with just the pokemon for company, somewhat confident in the fact that she’s safe, and doesn’t need to worry about things.

(At least, there are no immediate threats.)

She sinks further back in the chair, running through her mental list of things she needs to do today.

She should keep working with Nido.

And she should take Blasty for a swim, it’s been a few days.

“You want to go to the beach, Jiggly?” she asks and is met with a cheerful hum, before pulling herself up to go get dressed.

She’d learned quickly that the public beaches along the island were almost always clogged with people, but the private ones attached to vacation homes tended to be both nicer and quieter, and so long as Nido smooths the sand out before they leave, there’s nothing much to be worried about, and if someone does catch her she can always claim to have gotten lost.

Ten minutes later, she’s locking the front door (for all their paranoia regarding her, her parents rarely remember to lock it, and she gets that Sevii feels safe and quiet, but it makes her nervous to leave it unlocked), and then she and Jiggly set out for the water.


	7. Chapter 7

The roof’s warm under Silver, as he lays on his back, watching Murkrow circle over the house.

They’re staying home from the gym today, and he’s taking a break from his school work to let Murkrow get some exercise.

Technically, he’s supposed to be on the balcony, not the roof, but he’s fine, and it’s the first place Giovanni will look if he needs him anyway.

And it’s nice up here.

It’s sunny, and he can hear pokemon digging around in the forest, along with the occasion chirp of warning as Murkrow’s shadow passes over something and it scrambles into hiding.

He hasn’t swooped down after anything though, which is better behavior that Silver can expect from Sneasel, who he still has to pull out of nests on occasion.

He hears the door to the balcony open, followed by the sound of Giovanni climbing up to the roof.

Silver doesn’t look over as he sits down next to him.

“What did I say about the roof?”

“Murkrow would catch me if I fell.”

Giovanni doesn’t say anything else, and Silver feels warm fingers ruffle his hair before his father lays down next to him, and he inches over to curl closer.

“Everything okay?” Giovanni asks.

“Yeah, I’m good.”

He knows why the gym had to reopen, but there’s a part of him that misses the days when he’d first come home, and they had nothing to do, and it’s nice to be able to just rest.

“Did we need to do anything today?” he asks after a few minutes.

“No. It just seemed like a good day for a break.”

Silver nods, even though Giovanni can’t see his face.

“What was Blaine here about the other day?”

“There’s some… things picking up in Johto. He’s worried about it. There’s not a whole lot any of us can do about it though.”

“It has to do with…” He doesn’t want to actually say it.

“Most likely.”

“Oh.” Then, after a few seconds, “Why can’t you do anything?”

Giovanni’s quiet for a bit, and Silver shifts to see him staring up at the clouds, his expression tense.

“We’re not sure if it’s one group or multiple. If it is multiple, they’re leaving each other alone right now, but if any of us were to intervene somewhere it might give the impression that we’re siding with a different group, and that could lead to fighting between them. And as far as the general public is concerned, I have no actual ties to any of it, so the best way to maintain that is to stay out of it unless they start something here.”

“Do you think they will?”

“I’d be surprised if anything big happened.”

Silver nods again, not missing the way Giovanni rubs at his knuckles.

It’s been mostly quiet over the past year, but a few months ago Silver had gone back to the gym just as two men were leaving, one walking very stiffly, and Nidoking had been out in the battlefield, far more alert than normal, and he’d caught Giovanni icing his hand later that night. He doesn’t know what they’d wanted, and they haven’t been back, but it had been a reminder that things aren’t completely fine now.

“What if something does happen here?”

“I’ll deal with it. Whatever happens, it won’t be your problem, Silver.”

Murkrow swoops back down to the roof before Silver can think of an answer, and he sits up, scratching at the bird’s chin when he stretches his neck out.

Giovanni sits up too, and Silver glances over to see that the tension still hasn’t left his expression.

He doesn’t think he’d been lying about not thinking that anything big would happen in Viridian, but Silver knows that’s not a guarantee of anything.

They stay quiet for another few minutes, before Giovanni says, “I know the League doesn’t interest you all that much, but you are old enough for a journey if that’s something that you want to do.”

“Do you want me to go?” Silver asks, confused.

“No, it just occurred to me earlier, and I wasn’t sure if I’d actually told you.”

“Oh.” Then, after a few seconds, “I hadn’t really thought about it.” He gets the appeal, sort of, but he doesn’t really want to be wandering around on his own again, especially with no goal in mind. Any training goals are more likely to be met here, with Giovanni’s help, anyway.

“You don’t need to worry about it. I just wanted to make sure you knew it was on the table.”

“Right.”

He stands up and turns towards the balcony.

“I’m gonna go read.”

“That’s fine.”

Murkrow follows him as he works his way across the roof, and he sees Giovanni getting up as he climbs down to the railing, and then the stone floor of the balcony.

He doesn’t really have a plan for the rest of the day, but he should try to get caught up on school. The last book report had gotten drug out, and while Giovanni isn’t really giving him deadlines, he doesn’t like feeling like he’s falling behind.

He lets Murkrow keep trailing after him as he heads towards the library, and his stack of books, and, after dragging an armchair over to by the window, he settles in to read as Murkrow perches on the back of the chair.


	8. Chapter 8

“So what have you been up to?”

Green jumps, and looks up to see Will leaning over the table she’s sitting at.

“What do you want?”

“I’m not allowed to be nice?”

Green leans back, wrinkling her nose.

She’s in Saffron. Mummy’s meeting with someone somewhere down the street, and Green had more or less begged her way into coming with, so she’s lounging outside a coffee shop with a pastry and a tea.

Will showing up hadn’t been in her plans for the day. Not that she’d really had any anyway.

“Nothing, I guess. Did you need something?”

“No. Can I sit?”

She pulls her cupcake closer to her but nods, and he sinks into the chair across from her.

“You’ve been out with your parents?” he asks.

“Yeah. It’s been… good. Have you had any luck finding yours?”

“I’m not looking for them.”

He says it in such a casual way, and Green’s brow knits in confusion.

“Why?”

“Let’s just say, I ended up with Pryce because he offered to get me away from them. He wasn’t an improvement, but I’m not going back either.”

“Oh.”

That explains why he’s still staying with Sabrina, at least. You probably have to be pretty desperate to consider her good company.

“Oak’s at the gym, by the way.”

“The Professor-”

“No. His grandson. I didn’t get his name before I left. He’s picking something up, I guess. Sabrina made some comment about him not trusting her with his grandpa, but you probably have more context for that than I do.”

Green nods slowly and makes herself release the death-grip on her drink.

Blue being here is a little better than the Professor, but not by a lot.

But if she doesn’t run into him, then he’s not a problem at all.

“Thanks for the heads up,” she says after a few seconds.

“Don’t mention it.” After a few seconds, he starts to stand up, “I’ll get going-”

“No, you can stay.”

He looks surprised, and she doesn’t blame him, it’s not like they’ve really spoken… at all. She’d had a few short conversations with Karen after Cerise, but Will had left her alone.

“Alright.” He sits back down, an eyebrow raised.

“What’s Karen up to?” she asks, before taking a bite of the cupcake so she doesn’t have to say anything else for a few seconds.

“She’s in Cherrygrove with her grandma. Last time she called, it sounded like they were getting along. She seems happy, at least.”

Green nods, trying not to feel too bitter over the implication that, despite only being away from Pryce for a little over a year, Karen’s doing better at home than she is.

“That’s good,” she says finally.

Will nods, leaning back in his chair, and Green swirls her tea.

They sit in silence for a while as she finishes the cupcake, and drink.

“I should go,” she says, standing up, and Will nods.

“I’ll see you later maybe,” he says, and she smirks.

“Maybe.”

She waves, before turning on her heel, and walking off.

It’s almost time to meet up with Mummy, so she should probably head for where they’re meeting up.

That doesn’t mean she’s going to take the most direct route.

She takes a winding detour, darting down alleys and side streets. She’d never gotten a good grasp of Saffron’s layout. She’d gone straight to Silph when she finally got in, and had only been back once, and hadn’t had a whole lot of reason to go exploring.

(Which is a shame. It’s a lot bigger than Celadon, she’d probably have had an easier time keeping cons running here.)

She’s reaching the train station when she brushes shoulders with someone and hears a familiar voice say her name.

She wants to keep walking, but she freezes in place as Blue steps in front of her.

“What are you doing here?” he asks.

“I’m with Mum. She’s meeting me here in a few minutes.” Hopefully, she’ll get here soon, and Green will have an excuse to cut this short.

“Oh.” He’s quiet for a few seconds, before adding, “Gramps has been worried about you.” His tone is oddly stilted, like he’s supposed to pass on the message, but doesn’t really want to.

Green lets out a slow exhale, and lets her gaze drop from his face.

Ghosting Professor Oak with only Giovanni as a go-between hadn’t been her best decision, she’s realized that, but it had gotten to a point where it felt easier to just… let things be. Why stir up something once it’s settled?

“How is he?”

“He’s fine. Though I’m surprised you care.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Giovanni had him kidnapped and tortured, and you were apparently fine with that given that you were working with him for, what? A year?”

He’s not yelling. Green suspects there should be a yet somewhere in that observation.

“He was offering help, and I needed it.”

“We were all willing to help you look for your parents, Green.”

“With strings attached” is what she doesn’t say, even though it’s true.

“That’s not what I meant.”

“So you were planning on killing Pryce yourself? Because there isn’t anything else you’d have needed his help specifically with.”

She should just drop it. She really should just-

“How about”- she snaps, patience slipping -“there was a target on Pryce’s back the minute Silver went home and told Giovanni anything. Which I couldn’t have done anything to change even if I wanted to. The most I did was speed things up by proving that we were right about it being him. And I find it kinda funny that you’re complaining about it when you didn’t care at all when Silph blew up.”

“That’s not the same thing, no one died at Silph.”

“No one we cared about died at Silph. You don’t know who got stuck under the rubble. And yeah, it was self-defense, but all that would have happened if Pryce didn’t die was that I’d have to keep worrying about him coming after me, and my parents wouldn’t be safe so it’s still not that different.”

“But we weren’t trying to hurt anyone.”

“And I didn’t hurt anyone. I couldn’t have stopped Giovanni from doing anything that he did, and I get that you all would have helped, but it wasn’t your fight, you had no weight in it, and he was right there offering. And either way, I never expected any of you to be fine with it. I tried to give the pokedex back. Yellow has it now. If what I did was that awful, none of you have to see me again.”

She’s breathing hard, and he looks like he’s going to keep arguing, but before he can, a hand settles on Green’s shoulder as she hears her name again, and she jumps, turning around to see Mummy looking worried.

Before she can say anything, Green forces out, in the most chipper tone she can manage, “Hi Mum. This is Blue.”

“Oh.” She looks startled, and Green supposes the fact that they’d been arguing is probably obvious. “Hello.”

Blue smiles, and it looks painfully forced. “I’ll let you go. Green.”

“Bye.”

She watches as he walks off, trying to piece together a plan as fast as possible.

“Is everything okay?” Mummy asks.

“Yeah, I’m fine. Um… Would it be okay if I took a train out to Viridian and stayed for a few days? I… had Nido out earlier, and she was acting weird. I want Giovanni to take a look at her.”

“That’s… fine. Does he know you’re coming?”

“I said I might be.” He has fifteen guestrooms. He can put up with her for a week or so while she gets her head straight.


	9. Chapter 9

It’s been raining for almost an hour when Silver stumbles back into the gym, drenched and shivering.

Giovanni doesn’t get a chance to remind him that he has a habit of getting sick when he disregards the weather though, because as he’s helping the boy wring his hair out with a towel, Green calls.

“Is something wrong?” is his greeting, as he pins the phone between his shoulder and ear so he can go through Silver’s hair again..

“I’m at the train station, can you come pick me up if you’re not busy? I can walk, otherwise.” Something’s off in her tone, and Silver looks up at him, eyes round and worried.

“I can be there in a few minutes. Are you alright?”

“I’m fine. I just… can I stay for a week or so? I can tell you why later. Mummy knows I’m here.”

So she’s at least not running off on her parents. Clearly, something happened though.

“That’s fine. I’ll see you in a few minutes.”

“What happened?” Silver asks as he hangs up.

“I don’t know. She’s at the train station, I’ll be back with her in a bit.”

“Can I come with you?”

“You can stay here, and dry off.”

Silver wrinkles his nose but nods, and Giovanni only pauses long enough to retrieve his coat and an umbrella from his office before leaving.

Green had probably meant for him to bring the car, but he could use the walk, and it’s an extra few minutes to figure out what had happened because he doubts she’ll say in front of Silver.

It’s a ten-minute walk to the train station, and Green’s sitting on a bench outside it when he reaches the building.

“Am I going to need to lie to someone with a police badge later?” he asks when he reaches her, and the corner of her mouth twitches just a bit.

“No, it’s nothing like that. I… got into a fight with Blue. If I go back to Sevii right now, Red’s gonna show up with a pep talk again, but if I’m with you they’ll all leave me alone. So can I stay for a bit?”

“That’s fine.”

It’s not really worth arguing over, and there’s no reason not to let her stay.

“Thank you!” She hops up, grabbing his arm as she steps under the umbrella.

He doesn’t trust the overly cheerful response, but he doesn’t say anything as they turn back towards the gym.

“How’s your training going?” he asks after a few minutes.

“Good. I think working on things with no outside pressure was good for all of us. I can just pick something to work on, and it doesn’t have to be specifically to counter something. That’s nice.”

“Do you still want my help?”

“If you’re not too busy.”

He nods. “That should be fine.”

Her eyes are red, and her grip on his arm is slightly too tight.

“Silph’s reopening,” she murmurs, and he supposes he has a clue as to what she and Oak’s brat had gotten into their fight over.

“So I’ve heard.”

“What do you think about it?”

“It was going to happen eventually.”

“Daddy thinks they’re trying to make a statement about what happened by staying in the building. Like they didn’t really lose, or something.”

“He might have a point.” Though the statement itself is wasted. No one it’s aimed at cares.

He glances down at her, to see her staring at her boots, lead along by her grip on him and her mind clearly somewhere else.

“I don’t like it. It’s like putting a radio tower over a graveyard or something; it feels wrong.”

“Is there something else about Silph, Green?” he asks, keeping his tone light.

“No. I’m fine.”

She picks her head up, straightening up, her too-bright smile back on her face, and Giovanni supposes that’s the end of their talk.

Silver’s sitting in the gym’s lobby when they get back, and Sneasel jumps into Green’s arms as soon as they’re through the door, and she’s followed by Silver darting over to hug her.

“Hey! I’m staying for a bit.”

Silver steps back, his gaze lingering on her face for a few seconds, before he nods.

“That sounds good.”

He’s clearly as convinced by her demeanor as Giovanni is, but he doesn’t press, and within a few minutes, they’re settled on the bleachers by the battlefield, talking, and Giovanni returns to his office.


	10. Chapter 10

“So why’d you come out here?”

Silver watches as Green jumps, before turning around to face where he’s standing in the doorway to her room.

“Just wanted a change of scenery,” she says with a shrug. “I missed you, and I could use some help with Nido anyway.”

Silver tilts his head, not entirely convinced, but he pads into her room, and flops down on her bed, ignoring the glare she shoots in his direction when his still wet hair hits her blankets.

“Where’s the fuzzy blanket I got before?”

“It’s in my room.” She wrinkles her nose and he adds, “You weren’t using it.”

“Brat.”

She sits down on the edge of the bed, staring down at him.

“How have things been going?”

“Good.”

If she’s going to be vague then so is he.

If she notices what he’s doing, she doesn’t say anything, instead laying down next to him, and Silver reaches over to grab her hand.

“Are you okay?” he asks.

“Yep. You don’t need to worry about me.”

Silver nods, still not convinced, but he stays quiet for another few minutes, before slipping out to let Green reorganize her stuff.

He finds Giovanni sitting on the couch in the living room, a book in his hands as a fire crackles in the fireplace, and Nidoqueen sprawls out on the rug in front of it.

Silver curls up next to his father, his gaze skimming the book’s pages as an arm slips around him.

“Did she say what happened?” he asks.

“Not in detail, and if she hasn’t told you anything, you’re going to need to wait.”

Silver wrinkles his nose, but nods. He hadn’t really expected a different answer, but it had been worth a try.

“It’s nothing serious,” Giovanni adds after a few minutes. “She just wants a few weeks to figure something out. So don’t bother her about it unless she wants help, alright?”

“I know.”

He supposes he shouldn’t be too surprised. She’d bolted out to Sevii the minute it was clear the alternative was explaining what they’d all done to Oak last year so that she’s avoiding something makes sense.

He’s not going to hold his breath on her asking him for help though.

Quietly, he shifts, letting his head settle in Giovanni’s lap, and warm fingers ruffle his hair as he hears a page turn in the book.

“Did either of you have a preference for dinner?”

“No.”

He hears a quiet hum of acknowledgment and lets his eyes close as he settles in place.

After a while, he hears Green’s footsteps on the stairs, followed by the sound of her dropping into the armchair across from them.

He opens one eye to see her wrapped up in the blanket she’d been asking about earlier, with a book in her hands, any sign of the problem that had apparently sent her out here covered up.

At some point, Giovanni nudges him to get him up, and he sits up, letting his father get up and head towards the kitchen.

Green’s still sitting in her chair, her grip on the book just a little too tight.

“Do you want to do something?” he asks after a moment.

“Like what?”

He shrugs, and she closes the book, leaning back in the chair.

“There are cards upstairs if you don’t cheat,” he says after a moment and the corner of her mouth twitches.

“Fine.”

He follows her up to the library, and they settle at a table as Green deals out a game.

She doesn’t seem upset, at least. Just a little on edge.

“Do you want to bet anything?” Green asks, raising an eyebrow.

“No.”

“I just said I wasn’t going to cheat.”

“I’m not betting anything.”

She wrinkles her nose but shoves his stack of cards towards him, and Silver keeps his expression as neutral as possible when he picks them up to find he’s (for once) gotten a decent hand.


	11. Chapter 11

“She seems like she’s doing good. Any thoughts on evolving her yet?”

Green shakes her head, watching as Giovanni looks over Nido.

They’re in his office in the gym. She’d been lying to Mummy about needing him to look at Nido, but since she’s here, he may as well.

“I don’t like evolving pokemon without a reason. You waste a lot of energy if you just do it at random.”

He nods, holding out a hand to stop Nido from stepping on some papers on the desk.

“You’re very patient for your age.”

Green feels the corner of her mouth twitch in amusement before she picks Nido up off the desk.

“Is Silver still working on his team?”

“He’s been a bit more sporadic about it, but yes. And Yellow drops in for the occasional lesson too.”

She nods, catching the faint smile threatening to cross his face.

At least things are going good for Silver.

“I talked to Will while I was in Saffron,” she says as she sets Nido on the floor, and drops onto the couch in front of the desk. “He seems like he’s happy with Sabrina.”

“I know you two don’t get along, but she is a good teacher.”

“I didn’t say anything about her.”

Giovanni nods as he pulls the papers Nido had been trying to mess with back to the center of his desk, and Green taps her foot quietly on the floor.

Silver’s off with Yellow, and they’d invited her along but tromping through the forest is not her idea of fun, so she’s staying here.

Not that Giovanni’s particularly entertaining either, but there is a noted lack of chirping birds in the gym.

“Out of curiosity, what exactly were you and Blue arguing about yesterday?” he asks right when she starts to get back up, and she stiffens.

“Why?”

“I assume it must have been something bad to send you all the way out here. I’m just curious.”

She shifts from foot to foot, debating if she actually wants to talk about it.

On one hand, he is probably the only person who both can and will answer her questions regarding if anyone had actually died when Silph collapsed, but on the other hand, she’s not sure he’ll just drop it after answering her questions, and she doesn’t really need her parents to know what she’s worried about.

“I don’t want to talk about it right now,” she says finally. “Maybe later.”

“That’s fine.”

He doesn’t keep prodding, and after a few seconds, she nods, and slowly walks over to the bookshelves along the wall, scanning the spines quietly as she looks for something to read.

It’s getting dark when Silver and Yellow get back, and Yellow lingers long enough to collect a sketchbook she’d apparently forgotten before taking off on Dody, and Silver flops dramatically onto the couch next to Green.

“Long day?” she asks, raising an eyebrow.

“I’m just tired.”

She nods, keeping half an eye on him as she keeps reading.

He seems a little off. On edge, maybe, but she can’t figure out why.

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah.” He stretches out and leans back against the armrest of the couch. “Just a little cold, I think. It’s still really wet out.”

“Oh.”

She doesn’t point out that Giovanni keeps the gym several degrees warmer than a normal building (something about dry air being beneficial, but she’s pretty sure it’s just to mess with anyone with a water type), but it only takes a couple of minutes for Silver to settle anyways, and once he does she’s a little more inclined to believe him.

At least until she catches him periodically glancing at the window.


	12. Chapter 12

“Since all three of you are here today, why don’t we play a game for training today?” Giovanni suggests, studying where Silver, Yellow, and Green are all sitting on the bottom row of the gym’s bleachers.

“What’s the prize?” Green asks as Yellow slips the cap back onto the pen she’d been drawing with and Silver looks up from his book.

“Does there need to be one?”

“It’s not as fun if you don’t win something.”

“Fine. Win the first round with no help from me and I’ll give you a badge.”

She wrinkles her nose, and neither of the other two seems particularly enthused either. He’s somehow managed to gather the three children with the least interest in the League in the entire region.

“You’re not allowed to do that,” Silver points out as they climb down from their seats.

“What the league directors don’t know won’t hurt them.” And he’ll be genuinely surprised if any of them actually get it right in one go anyway. (And if they do, they more than deserve the badge.) “Line up on the edge of the battlefield.”

As they do so, he lets Nidoqueen out, and she steps lightly onto the soft dirt of the battlefield.

After murmuring instructions to her, he turns towards the children. “Watch the ground closely.” He snaps his fingers, and Nidoqueen disappears under the soil in a matter of seconds.

“For about two minutes, she’ll be moving around. Try and see if you can tell where she is. After that, she’ll pick a spot along the edge to stop. Your job is to find where, and if you’re spot on, you’ll get a badge as promised. And Yellow, don’t cheat.”

“I wasn’t going to,” she says, gaze locked on the ground in front of her.

Giovanni appreciates that none of them are arguing with him as to whether or not this is possible. It certainly is, he can see exactly where Nidoqueen is right now, zigzagging her way down the middle, disturbing the dirt above her just enough to be noticeable to trained eyes.

He’ll walk the three of them through what they’re supposed to be looking for (the way any loose dirt shifts over her head, the way it rounds just a bit in looser areas, and resettles when she’s gone) later, but he’s found that an easy way of getting their attention is to provide a puzzle they probably can’t solve, and calling it a game keeps Silver and Green from getting too on edge when they don’t get it on the first go.

Nidoqueen settles in the far corner, and Giovanni leans against the wall at the base of the bleachers.

“Alright, go find her.”

Yellow’s guess is the closest, which isn’t that surprising. Silver’s a little ways away from her, and Green had ended up diagonally across from the correct spot.

Giovanni nods, before whistling, and waiting until Nidoqueen’s surfaced and shaken off the worst of the dirt (mainly onto Silver and Yellow) before walking over.

“Were you guessing randomly, or were you looking for something?”

“I could kind of see her moving at first, but I lost track,” Green says after a moment, and Giovanni nods, before looking to Silver and Yellow.

“This spot looked off,” Silver says after a moment, and he’s right; the ground had stayed slightly raised when she’d tunneled under.

“It looked off, and I could hear her on this end.” Yellow ducks her head. “I wasn’t trying to.”

“That’s fine.” Realistically, she’ll be using her gifts in any fight she gets into anyway, he’d just wanted to see how she’d do without the added help. “You all have the right idea for how to keep an eye on something underground. It should go without saying, but this would be much harder with a smaller pokemon. Particularly one actually adapted to tunneling. Who can tell me why this is a useful skill?”

“You know when to call for your own pokemon to dodge. Or I guess you can pay more attention to your own if they’re the one digging,” Silver says, in a tone that makes it clear he thinks the answer is obvious.

“Yes, and?”

Silver wrinkles his nose, and while he thinks, Green asks, “How much can the pokemon underground tell about what’s going on above them?”

“It depends on the species.” Nidoqueen steps over so she’s peering down at them around his shoulder. “Some are relying entirely on what they can hear, others are better at picking up on movements through vibrations in the ground. Something that spends a lot of time underground in the wild will usually be better than something that lives above ground. If you were quiet, she probably wouldn’t be able to find you,” he adds with a gesture towards Nidoqueen, and Green nods.

He turns his attention back to the other two, to find Silver staring out the window, his brow knit.

“Silver?”

The boy jumps, looking over. “What was the question?”

“Is something wrong?”

He shakes his head, straightening up as he turns away from the window, and gently pushes Nidoqueen away when she wanders over to nuzzle him.

“I’m fine.”

Giovanni nods, not fully convinced. Silver’s seemed distracted for the past few days, but he’s also not going to get a more detailed answer with the girls here, so instead, he says, “As I was saying, the point of this is not just being able to monitor the pokemon that’s underground, though that would be a good skill for all of you to learn, given your teams, but to figure out information from how they’re moving. The battlefield here is more or less uniform, but if you were fighting in the woods? Or even just an outdoor battlefield? There would be inconsistencies in the ground. If a pokemon’s avoiding a spot, it may be harder. You could slam your opponent into it, or if you needed better footing for an attack, and so on. Does that make sense?”

They all nod, and after a moment, Yellow says, “You’re supposed to monitor all that while fighting someone?”

“You want it to get to where you don’t have to focus on it. It takes practice, and it will get easier as you get better at observing a fight in general. Make your environment work for you. Does that make sense?”

She nods, and Giovanni waits until Silver and Green do the same, before saying, “That can be all for today, why don’t the three of you go pick up lunch? There’s cash in my jacket in the front.” Green’s eyes light up, and he adds, “I want the change back.”


	13. Chapter 13

Yesterday, Silver had told Yellow that he’d be staying at the gym to catch up on schoolwork today.

This morning, he’d told Giovanni and Green that he was meeting Yellow at a bookstore in town, and left the gym with Sneasel perched on his shoulder, and his fingers brushing the hilt of the knife he’d found in Giovanni’s desk and subsequently shoved up his sleeve.

Someone’s been following him and Yellow off and on for the past few weeks, they’ve even staked out the gym a few times, and while he does feel a little better about his panic attack a few weeks ago given that there had been an actual reason for it, he also needs to deal with it.

And it’s not really Green’s problem, and Yellow doesn’t like getting into fights, and Giovanni’s busy, so he’s going to deal with it himself.

It shouldn’t be too hard.

He looks like an easier target on his own anyway, so if they’re going to try something it would be smart to do it now.

He’s been wandering through the city for almost an hour with no sign of trouble, and he’s getting impatient.

Where are they?

The problem is that he hasn’t gotten a good look at whoever is trailing him. He’s just seen someone pop up around them constantly, but he’s never gotten a good look at their face.

On his shoulder, Sneasel chirps, and Silver glances around again, trying to pay more attention.

He almost misses the man half a block back, who seems to be turning away from him as soon as he looks back.

But he’s there, and Silver recognizes the coat from a few days ago, so he’s at least found his apparent stalker.

He’s not sure what to do now though.

What he wants to do is corner him somehow, and get any information he can on who sent him, but… Viridian’s a quiet enough city that a fight in an alley might actually attract attention, and Silver doesn’t have the luxury of skipping town the minute things go wrong anymore. (And Giovanni probably won’t appreciate having to deal with Silver attracting police attention.)

After a few seconds of thought as he keeps walking, he turns towards the paths out of town, and towards Pallet.

If he just gets a little way out of the city, that should be all he needs.

The man keeps following him, and he fights the urge to keep looking back.

Hopefully, this isn’t such a big break from routine that it seems suspicious, but nothing changes as they reach the footpath out of the city, and Silver steps off the path into the trees, forcing out a deep breath as the temperature plummets at an exhale of cold air from Sneasel, and she jumps from his shoulder to a tree, and Silver follows her just as he hears footsteps behind him, and he shifts quietly in the tree, trying to get a look at who’s after him.

He doesn’t find who he’d been expecting.

Red’s stepping slowly into the clearing under the tree, his back to Silver and the pikachu everyone had been tearing their hair out over a year ago at his heels, both on edge as Red rubs at his arms, clearly affected by Sneasel’s messing with the temperature.

Silver considers staying in his tree, just to see what happens, but whether his target recognizes Red or not, he is a witness where there hadn’t been one before, and they’re probably backing off now.

Unfortunately.

Signaling to Sneasel to stop, he slowly lowers himself from the tree, settling quietly on the ground, before saying, “What are you doing here?”

Red jumps, spinning around, and Silver doesn’t miss the brief crackle of electricity on the pikachu before both of them relax, and Silver wonders if it would be rude to comment on how easy sneaking up on him had been.

“Leaving Pallet,” Red says slowly. “What are you doing all the way out here, Silver?”

“Nothing you need to worry about.”

He’s not trying to sound rude, but he’d liked his plan, and now he’s going to need a drastically different one, not to mention he’s going to need to slip away from everyone again.

Red glances around again, before nodding. “I can walk you back to town.”

“I don’t need a babysitter.”

“Is Green staying with you right now?” Red asks, ignoring his complaint and turning back towards the main path, and, after a few seconds Silver follows, but he doesn’t answer.

He’s already worked out that she’s avoiding someone, and that someone is probably either Red or someone Red’s friends with, and Silver doesn’t really want Green mad at him.

As they head back towards the city, Silver catches Red glancing at him periodically, until finally, he says, “Is something wrong?”

“What do you mean?”

“You were pretty far from the gym.”

A scowl flashes across Silver’s face, and he says, “Someone was following me, and I wanted to find out why. You’ve probably scared them off though, so thanks.” He hopes the sarcasm in the last word is obvious.

“Someone was following you?” Red echos, sounding worried, and Silver shrugs.

“I had it under control.”

“Did anyone know that you’re out here?”

“No.”

“Silver-”

“I don’t really want a lecture from you. I had it under control. I’ll just need a different plan for the next time they show up.”

Red doesn’t get a chance to keep arguing, because they’re both met with a familiar, not-particularly-happy voice snapping, “Silver!”

He turns slowly, meeting Green’s gaze, bracing for a lecture.

“Yellow showed up at the gym, she said you’d told her you would be staying there today. Where were you?”

“He said someone was following him,” Red says, butting in before Silver can come up with an excuse that won’t end in him not being allowed to go anywhere unsupervised.

Green’s attention turns to Red as confusion crosses her face.

“What do you mean?”

“He was setting up an ambush along Route One. I didn’t see anyone else.”

“Silver…”

“Let’s just go back to the gym.” He steps away from Red, and towards her. His plan didn’t work, and given that Green’s almost certainly going to be filling Giovanni in, he’s probably not going to get the chance to deal with it himself.

“Are you sure they’re gone?” she asks, slipping an arm around him to stop him from walking past her.

Silver glances around once, but he nods. “Whatever they were trying to do, he got in the way.” He gestures towards Red, and the corner of his mouth twitches when Sneasel’s claws slip out for a moment before she realizes he isn’t ordering an attack.

Green still looks worried, but she nods.

“Thanks, Red. Let’s go, Silver.”


End file.
